


In Utopia

by Owlix



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mentions of Past Animal Abuse, Mentions of past drug use, Politics, robot filesharing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-12 08:24:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2102406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlix/pseuds/Owlix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wing wants to understand Drift better. Drift doesn't know what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Compassion

**Author's Note:**

> [Mandarin Chinese translation available](http://tieba.baidu.com/p/3393149531) \- Thank you catbug! :)

 

“The Decepticons started out as a pacifist movement too, you know,” Drift said, nursing his injured lip. “Before we thought the better of it.”

Drift sat next to Wing, their backs against the wall, plating ticking as it cooled. Another “sparring” session over. Drift had failed to land a single blow. He’d come close, but close was meaningless. His hands itched for his guns, but they’d been taken from him when he’d been rebuilt without his consent. Probably destroyed - he hadn’t seen a single firearm since he’d woken up here. The weaponry had been expensive, and its absence was just another aspect of his body that felt wrong.

They’d left his Decepticon badge intact, at least. Drift touched it - a piece of his own spark casing, shaped into the symbol of the cause he’d given everything for. But he’d burned that bridge. There was no comfort in the feel of his badge under his fingertips. Drift pulled his hand away from his own chest.

“I’d heard that,” Wing said, shaking Drift from his self-pity. “I didn’t think it was true. I thought it was just part of the background story Megatron was building. Something to lend some credibility to his violence. Something that he could use to say ‘I tried other methods first.’”

Drift grinned and looked down at his empty hands. “No,” he said. “No, they’d long abandoned it by the time I joined the cause, but Megatron is an idealist. He really believed in pacifism. To the core of his spark, he believed it.”

“You sound certain.”

Drift glanced up. Wing was staring at his face, and he spoke the words slowly, gently. Glad Drift was talking, probably. Trying to coax him into opening up, like taming some wild turbofox. It was insulting. But Drift needed something to break the monotony of his imprisonment, even if that something was just talking to his jailer.

“What makes you so sure?” Wing asked. “I’ve heard that he’s a convincing writer. But some people can lie very effectively on-screen.”

_Heard? Then--_ “You haven’t read Towards Peace? _Or_ After the Ark?”

Wing shrugged and shook his head. “No. I never felt the need.” He took in Drift’s expression and quirked a faint smile. “Should I?”

“Yes,” Drift said immediately. “Even if you don’t agree with him, his perspective is groundbreaking. It’ll change the way you look at -- at _everything_.”

Wing gave him a long look, clearly hesitant to speak whatever he was thinking. Drift felt the irritation building inside him. Of course Wing hadn’t read it. Of course he _wouldn’t_. Wing thought he was better than Drift, better than Megatron, better than all of them. Him and his self-satisfied supposed nonviolence and his too-perfect utopia. Him and his Circle of Light, who’d left him starving on the dark streets of the Dead End and abandoned their entire culture to self-destruction.

Drift wanted to hit him. He would have, if he thought the blow would actually connect.

But Drift couldn’t fight back with force. He’d lose. The certainty of that was bitter. It brought back things he hadn’t felt in years.

“I know that Megatron believed it,” Drift said softly, “because he _told me_.”

Wing stared. Shocked. Impressed, maybe. Drift held back his grin.

“Megatron talks,” Drift said, faking modesty. “When he’s tired. When it’s dark. When we’re alone.” He saw the question in Wing’s eyes, and answered it before Wing had a chance to ask. “We weren’t close -- not like that. But sometimes Megatron needed to talk, and sometimes he needed someone to listen. And sometimes that someone was me.” The gravity of his own words struck him. “I guess he trusted me enough for that,” Drift said, half to himself.

Drift went still for a moment, remembering. The night, and the post-battle quiet. The smell of hot metal and bare plating and spilled fuel from open wounds. The texture of Megatron’s voice when he spoke softly - so different from the way it felt when he gave speeches or orders. The weight of his hand.

Megatron had given Drift his trust. Had helped him kick his multiple addictions. Had probably _saved his lif_ e. And Drift was repaying him with _this_. With _betrayal_.

Wing’s expression turned softer. Sympathetic. Drift realized how transparent he was being. How weak. Centuries of self-control, breaking down within months of Wing’s captivity. It was embarrassing.

Drift flinched away and snarled. “What’re you looking at?”

Wing kept staring, unaffected. Drift sat still, back against the wall. He wanted to lash out, but it would be useless. He wanted to shout, but that would just prove how badly Wing was rattling him. Cornered, he waited for his moment to attack.

“I’ll read them,” Wing said, abruptly. “I don’t think we have them in the archives, but if you can give me a copy, I’ll read them. I want to understand, Drift. What drove you. What you were fighting for.”

“Of course I have a copy.” Drift was dedicated to the cause. He carried both books with him in his internal hard drive. Files that Megatron had gifted to him personally.

Wing smiled. He reached into a compartment on his side and unspooled a wire, preparing for the file transfer. “Will you share them with me?”

“ _No._ ” Drift flinched away before he had time to think.

Wing stared, hurt and confusion briefly clear in his expression before he managed to hide them both.

“I can’t directly connect,” Drift said, averting his gaze. “Not without an external firewall.” For some stupid reason he kept talking. “I have some deep-coded viruses. They’re contained and treated, but they can still be spread. It isn’t safe for me to connect to others directly.”

Repercussions from his days of uploading any illegal boosting software he could get his hands on, from dealers, by hooking up with friends or strangers, or by inserting them directly into his neural net. Drift could feel Wing staring at him, and he was so tired of being stared at. But when he met Wing’s optics, intending to snarl and drive him off and force him to look away, Wing’s expression was nothing like Drift had expected it to be. There was no judgment there, and no disgust either, just something Drift couldn’t read. Confusion sapped the power from his anger. He glanced away again.

“Next time, I’ll bring one with me,” Wing said, coiling the wire and stowing it. “Would that be all right? I still want to read them, if you’re willing to share.”

Drift muttered something vaguely affirmative, feeling foolish.

“Thank you,” Wing said. “For warning me.”

Why _had_ Drift warned him? What did he care if he transferred a virus to his captor? Drift bristled, drawing in on himself.

“Figured you already knew,” Drift growled out in an attempt to cover up his mistake. “You people rebuilt me, after all. It had to show up on the medical scans.”

“I’m not your medic, Drift,” Wing said gently. “I don’t have access to your private medical information.” As if that should have been obvious. As if it hurt him that it wasn’t.

And it felt like condescension and disdain all at once, and Drift was so damned tired of being looked down on, and the fact that he knew Wing didn’t mean it with anything but kindness just made it worse, somehow.

“I don’t see where you get off calling yourself that anyway,” Drift snarled. “A pacifist, I mean. You’re carrying a sword on your back. Every afternoon, you beat the everloving scrap out of me. At least Dai Atlas -- he’s a coward, but at least he’s an honest coward. Better than you.”

Drift clenched and unclenched his hands, anticipated violence. He wanted it, even though his body ached. It would help work out the tension.

None came. Just silence, drawing out unbearably long.

Wing moved. Drift flinched. But Wing was only shifting his weight. He leaned his head back until it hit the wall and heaved a sigh.

“You’re right,” Wing said. “I’ve never been all that good at nonviolence.”

Drift had been trying to hurt him. He had expected Wing to lash out in return, not this… this Autobot touchy-feely feelings-talk. He would’ve preferred a fight. He didn’t know what to do with this.

“Dai Atlas has his opinions about the core element of pacifism,” Wing said quietly, optics shut and face turned skyward. “I have mine.”

“Sounds like an excuse,” Drift spat.

But Wing just smiled. “You sound like him,” he said, and Drift was once again left floundering. “You’re probably both right. It probably is.”

Drift was reminded abruptly of his time with Gasket. They used to sit together like this in the alleys of the Dead End, exhausted and in pain. Talking and sharing files and looking at the tiny patches of dark sky visible from the Dead End streets.

For a moment, grief choked him. What was wrong with him? Why did he keep thinking about things long past? All of that was behind him, wasn’t it? He got control of himself, glanced over at Wing, but Wing was lost in thought himself, optics still closed.

“For Dai Atlas, it comes down to not committing violence with his own two hands,” Wing said. “It’s like…” Wing gestured with his empty hands, reaching for something. “Like he’s an addict. He can’t trust himself to take even one step down that path. He's afraid that he won't stop.”

Something about that prickled in Drift’s neural net, leaving anger in its wake.

“But for me,” Wing said, “it’s different. I think the most important thing is compassion. Compassion for all life.” He opened his empty hands wide, then carefully closed them. “Violence is never a good solution, and it always has ramifications, but sometimes I can’t think of anything better. I know that’s a failing, but like I said... I'm no good at this.”

And Drift was the one staring, now. Wing’s word’s sounded too familiar.

Drift had been trying to do the same. On the streets, he’d hurt and killed for himself and the few people he cared about. Since joining the Decepticons, he’d committed violence on a grander scale, but for a better cause. To change the world. It had all been in the pursuit of that. Because Drift wanted to change the world, and he hadn’t thought it possible until then. Because Megatron had told him violence was the way to do it, and Drift had believed him. Drift had believed that it would be worth it, if things could change, and if he could help change them.

Drift stared at the hilt of Wing’s sword. Unconsciously, Wing reached for it, fingertips brushing it and then pulling away.

“I guess you’ve probably noticed that I don’t exactly fit in here.” Wing glanced at him, grinning ruefully.

Drift narrowed his optics, engine revving in a disdainful snort. “And what, now we open our sparks to each other?”

Wing’s smile went pained. He sat there for a moment, utterly motionless and face averted, then stood.

“Come on,” Wing said, expression carefully impassive. “You must be hungry.” He reached out a hand, an offer to help Drift to his feet.

Some part of Drift wanted to snarl and tell Wing that being beaten up by pacifists always worked up his appetite. Some other part wanted to take the offered hand and accept the attempt at kindness behind it - Drift was tired and in pain, and the fact that both were Wing’s fault didn’t make the offered assistance less tempting.

Drift compromised. He stayed silent, but he ignored the offered hand, struggling to his feet on his own. Wing withdrew further.

Drift should have felt some kind of minor, vindictive triumph over his captor. He wasn't sure why he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as usual to Galena for reading over this for me. I would post substantially fewer things if not for her help and support.


	2. Connection

It had become routine, by now.

Every morning, Wing let Drift out of his cell. (A spare room in Wing’s small home, with a comfortable recharge slab and a desk with some datapads to read and a single sealed-shut window. But a lock made it a cell no matter how it was furnished.)

Every morning, Wing escorted Drift to the arena. They “sparred” - which mostly meant that Drift tried to kill Wing, and Wing wiped the floor with him without doing him any serious physical harm. They let their frames cool down. They refueled. Then Wing sometimes dragged Drift along with him on his business, because Drift was Wing’s personal prisoner and given no freedom whatsoever. Couldn’t have a Decepticon dirtying up their utopia. Otherwise, Wing brought Drift home and locked him in his comfortable cell and went about other, more personal or more delicate business without him.

Yesterday’s conversation had been an anomaly; Drift normally shut down any attempt at small talk, let alone actual conversation. And today started out normal enough - the too-early wakeup call, the careful escort, the uncomfortably curtailed violence.

Drift had decided to pretend that the conversation had never happened. Odds were, Wing had never wanted to read the books at all. It was probably all just empty words. An insincere attempt to get Drift to open up.

They “sparred” until Drift finally hit the ground and stayed there. He eased himself against the wall, aching, and processed minor damage reports and overheating warnings as his frame cooled, fans venting hot air.

Wing sat down next to him and smiled. His smile was too open. Too honest. Not the type of expression Drift had gotten used to among the Decepticon higher ranks; everyone above Drift was trying to make sure he didn’t take their place, and everyone below him was afraid of him.

Wing’s smile reminded Drift painfully of Gasket. He put his injured hand in his mouth and sucked on his own spilled fuel as it leaked from the wound. A reminder that he was an unwilling prisoner here, held by force and threat of violence. That was the truth of things, no matter how Wing smiled at him.

“I didn’t forget,” Wing said. “I still want to read Megatron’s books, if you’re still willing to share them.” He opened the hatch on his forearm, revealing data ports and unspooling wire. He took out something else, too - a small but powerful-looking external firewall.

Drift just looked at him blankly. Wing seemed to interpret his bafflement as something else - hesitation, maybe.

“Here, I brought--” Wing fumbled around, then took out a small datapad. “If you’re more comfortable doing it this way.”

Drift revved his engines in a snort. Of course. Wing had changed his mind about directly connecting after all. He was trying to be polite about it, trying to pretend that he didn’t mind a hardline connection with a virus-carrying Decepticon prisoner.

Drift decided to call his bluff just to see him squirm. “I’d prefer the hardline, if it’s all the same to you.”

But Wing didn’t squirm, or stammer some excuse. He plugged the wire from his forearm into the external firewall, and, still smiling, held the wire from the firewall out for Drift to take.

Not sure what else to do, Drift accepted it.

It had been a long time since he’d had a hardline connection to another mech. It wasn’t intimate - not really, not for what they were doing, a simple file transfer. More along the lines of holding hands.

Not intimate, not really. But Drift realized abruptly that he was the one who didn’t want to.

There was no graceful way of backing out now - not without showing weakness. Drift popped the port cover on his forearm open and plugged in.

The hum of current across the completed connection was a physical, visceral thing, subtle but inherently pleasant. Wing sent him a ping, and Drift’s software responded in kind.

Wing’s software had a different flavor than Drift was used to - brighter and more open, even with all his internal firewalls up, and even filtered through the external firewall. None of the jagged edges of a street mech in need of recharge and maintenance and defragging. None of the implied threats built into the internal firewalls of most Decepticons. None of the polite, clearly demarcated boundaries of an Autobot. Wing felt distinctly foreign.

Still, the feeling of connection was the same. So was the tickling hum of faint sensation along the hardline.

Wing sent him a polite query. Drift offered him both of the files, and Wing initiated the transfer. The files transferred quickly, even with the slight slowdown as they passed through the external firewall.

Wing’s expression went distant for a moment - he must have been bringing them up on his HUD. His optics flickered as he stored the files.

He looked over at Drift, still smiling. A hint of his emotion filtered across the hardline, even through the external firewall. Faint, but easily identifiable. Pleasure at the contact. Satisfaction at Drift’s trust. Open happiness, at--

Drift yanked the plug out of his forearm.

 

They sat together under the awning of a restaurant on one of Crystal City’s main streets and refueled.

The chairs were comfortable and elegant - unlike anything from either side of the current war. Music played, filtering out the restaurant’s open door. The tune was foreign but still Cybertronian, with lyrics in accented neocybex. The energon was rich with trace metals and minerals - fuel to encourage thriving, not mere survival. The portions were generous, and it was luxuriously varied: energy-dense liquid in old-fashioned cubes, and metal and mineral-dense solid chips.

On afternoons like this, Drift could almost pretend that he wasn’t a prisoner.

When Drift had first gotten here, Wing hadn’t been able to take him to places like these. Dai Atlas seemed to think Drift was a threat to their little community - as if the war itself could be spread by casual contact and conversation.

As Drift remained here, Wing had gradually pushed harder against those boundaries. Drift was glad of it. As much as he hated being a captive, New Crystal City fascinated him. He paid close attention to every aspect of the city that he was allowed to see.

Drift had wanted the information to forward the cause. Not the way Dai Atlas seemed to assume - there would be little tactical advantage in harassing a truly neutral enclave of mechs like this one, especially with the war against the Autobots still ongoing. And in any case, Drift had no wish to destroy or damage this place.

No, Drift wanted to learn from it.

The Decepticon movement was at its root utopian, after all. Their ultimate goal was to build a better world. That had been why Drift had joined. That was what he still wanted to accomplish. Violence had been his method but never his goal. His desire to build a better world predated his joining the Decepticons - the movement had given him faith that the world could be changed, not the desire to change it.

All utopias came with a cost. It was impossible to be a Decepticon and not to understand that. They’d all paid part of that cost, in pain and in their own spilled fuel. They were all willing to pay for it with their lives, if they had to. And Megatron had spelled out clearly in his essays that the costs would continue even after the war. Nothing worthwhile came without sacrifice.

There had to be some sacrifice here, too. Someone in this city was paying the price for these clean streets and this rich fuel and this seeming-peace. Drift wanted to know who they were and what they were paying and whether it was worth it.

He knew that wasn’t a thing that he’d be shown willingly. But he kept his eyes open and watched, hoping to see the edges of it and guess at its size and shape.

Drift had spent half the meal people-watching before he realized that Wing had been entirely quiet. That was unusual - he at least attempted small-talk most days, if the two of them were dining alone.

When Drift glanced over at him, the reason for his silence was immediately obvious. Wing’s optics had a very distinct, flickering, half-focused look.

“You’re reading it?” Drift blurted out. “Already?”

Wing synthesized a cough and flicked his optics, presumably closing the file. “That was rude of me,” Wing said, optics focusing on Drift’s face. “I’m sorry.”

Drift just sat and stared.

 

Drift caught Wing reading a few more times. He didn’t let on that he’d noticed. He told himself it was just because he enjoyed the peace and quiet, but…

Wing was interested after all.

Drift wasn’t sure why that mattered to him. It shouldn’t have.

 

When Wing brought Drift home again, he was so absorbed in reading that he didn’t close the door to Drift’s cell.

Drift wasn’t sure why that mattered to him either, but it did. He sat on his recharge slab and watched the light of Wing’s optics flicker on the far wall, through the open door.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Drift sat in the familiar sparring room, exhausted and in pain. Wing eased himself down next to him. Closer than he used to. Drift suspected it was an attempt at familiarity or trust-building, but it just felt like an insult; Wing viewed him as harmless and they both knew it.

“I had a pet once,” Drift said, breaking the stillness. “A long time ago. Back when I was living on the streets.”

Wing was staring at him. Drift could feel it -- the prickling crawl of someone else’s attention that he used to feel on the streets when he was trying and failing to go unnoticed. He glanced over to confirm.

Yeah, Wing was staring all right. Hungry and eager for Drift to bare his spark. Probably thought all that work he had put in was finally paying off.

Drift turned away again. He smiled at his own hands.

“A cyberfox,” Drift said. “A young one. I found it damaged on the streets. They used to live in the cities back then, scavenging for garbage. Someone had run it over. Maybe on purpose - they were pests, you know? Knocking over garbage cans, making noise in the dark.” Drift rubbed at the back of his neck, fingertips picking at the edges of his own armor. “I couldn’t just leave it there.”

Drift laughed. “When I picked it up, it bit me. I mean, of course it did. But I brought it home anyway. We had a nice place in the Dead End back then. Still had an intact roof and it wasn’t cold, a door that _locked_ , and not too many people knew about the place yet, so you could leave stuff there and nobody would mess with it. I took the cyberfox back there with me and I shut it up in this little box.

“Most of my crew were pretty steamed about it. I mean, I got why. The cyberfox made noise. Not much - it was weak - but it scratched at the box, and it would whine. It kinda stank, too. Something about its fuel was going bad. Not that I could afford to do anything about that. I couldn’t even afford medicine for myself.”

Drift ventured another glance at Wing. The mech was staring at him with a spark-twisting, condescending sadness on his face. Drift wanted to choke him on it. But anger was worse than worthless without the strength to back it up. Drift clenched his empty hands.

“It started getting better. I don’t know how. I could barely feed the thing, and I cleaned its injuries but it’s not like I knew what I was doing. Its whole back end was all…” Drift gestured with his hands, crushing movements in the air. “Crunched up, still. It dragged its hind end around to move. But it wasn’t dying any more.”

Drift was close enough that the texture of Wing’s field brushed against his, intrusive and unwanted. He felt it shift faintly, easing with relief.

“When it got stronger, it started escaping from the box. The first time, I wasn’t home, and Gasket was blacked-out boosting. It wrecked the place. Scratched up the door, purged waste oil on my slagging _bed_ , chewed up Gasket’s arm for some reason while he was blacked out. I came home from working and I find this _mess_ , in our _new place_. I did my best to clean it up before Gasket woke up - Gasket was a nice mech - he was _wonderful_ \- but he would give you this “I’m not sad, just disappointed” look when you fragged up, and… Yeah.”

Drift realized he was rambling. Saying too much. He hadn’t intended to talk about Gasket. Wing didn’t deserve to know about him. But it had been a long time since Drift had talked to anyone. It felt better than it should. He reigned himself in, feeling foolish.

“But I didn’t get rid of the turbofox,” Drift said. “I couldn’t just let it go, not with its back end all smashed up. Why save it just to let it die? I put it back in the box even though it bit the slag out of me whenever I picked it up. I begged it to be quiet, to calm down. I had to shut the lid to keep it in there, and it kept _scratching_ , and I…”

Wing didn’t need to know the rest - that Drift had shaken the box in a desperate bid to shut it up, that he’d begged with it, _pleaded_ for it to just understand, to just stay quiet.

“I thought it’d get used to me. If I kept feeding it, I thought it’d settle down. Maybe that it would start to like me. But it never really stopped biting me. It’d eat the food I brought and then it’d growl. I’d hold it and it’d growl. It never shut up - it howled and it barked and it scratched at its box, and it kept getting out. It made us all miserable, and I… I started to hate it. I tried so hard to make it happy, and it didn’t even care.”

Wing didn’t need to know the rest, either. How its yowling had led someone to their nice, hidden place with the locking door while they were out. What they’d come home to find -- the door kicked in, everything ruined, everything of any value gone or destroyed, and the cyberfox... Drift hadn't had to worry about what to do with it any more.

It took them a long time to find another decent place, and Gasket hadn’t even been angry at him, just _disappointed_.

“It wasn’t right, what I did,” Drift said. “I wasn’t thinking about its welfare. I was thinking about _myself_ , and how I didn’t want to leave it to die in the street. I took it home to make _myself_ feel better, without thinking of what I was doing to it by holding it captive. I should have let it die on its own terms. Free.”

Drift looked up, hoping to see pain on Wing’s face. And he did see pain there, and it felt good to see it. If he couldn’t hit the fragger at least he could still hurt his feelings - at least he still had _some_ power over Wing.

Maybe Wing would even think it through. Maybe he would even _let Drift go_. A foolish hope, but Drift hadn’t felt it in a while. He let it warm him, hot in his chest.

Wing stayed silent for a long time. When he finally spoke his voice was very soft.

“I finished Towards Peace last night,” Wing said. He looked up abruptly, met Drift’s optics with his own, and smiled - sad, offensively gentle, far too sincere. “If you can save a life, Drift,” Wing said, quoting Megatron back at him, “you should.”

Drift was on him before he’d even made the decision to move. Then they were both on the floor, Drift’s left hand clenched tight around Wing’s throat, his right balled into a fist and raised to strike. Drift registered Wing’s expression - sad, shocked, open-mouthed - and then Drift was hitting him. _Really hitting him_ , each blow connecting. Cables gave under Drift’s clenched fingers. Wing’s open mouth was bleeding, now. And Drift kept hitting him, out for nothing but to _hurt_.

But then something on Wing’s face shifted, and Drift heard the roar of jet engines, distant through the white-hot rush of his rage. Wing shifted under him, impossible to keep hold of. They struggled, briefly. Drift knew he was outclassed. It didn’t matter. Wing deserved to be hurt and Drift had hurt him.

Wing held him down, twisting Drift’s arm behind his back, Drift’s face pushed painfully into the floor.

“No,” Drift said into the dirt. “ _No. You don’t get to quote Megatron to me._ ”

Wing didn’t answer. He gave no impression that he had even heard. Something wet and warm pattered down on Drift’s back - spilled fuel from Wing’s damaged face. Drift grinned into the dirt. Wing didn’t move to wipe his face.

Drift lay there, struggling, anticipating the beating that some part of his subconscious neural net expected would come, frame-deep sureness borne of years of experience. But Drift knew it wouldn’t - that wasn’t Wing’s style. Wing just held him down, helpless, until Drift tired himself out. Low-fuel warnings pinged his HUD; Wing kept him fueled, but never enough at a time that Drift could build up any level of reserves.

Drift finally went limp in Wing’s hold. Wing eased his grip slowly and carefully before finally letting go.

“Come on,” Wing said. “Let’s get you refueled.” When he spoke his voice was rough with the damage Drift had done to his throat, and some part of Drift was fiercely glad to hear it. But another part registered something familiar in Wing's tone. Not angry. Just disappointed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Galena for helping me with this chapter, and to Choi for expressing interest in reading more and motivating me to rescue this from my drafts folder.


End file.
